Tuesday, December 2, 2014

They were raised in The Sewers amidst rats and
cockroaches, surrounded by diseased splendor and crowned with a halo of lice.
This was fine when they didn't know any better, when they were absorbed with
the business of survival. There was no energy left with which to consider the
social injustice of their circumstances. Those few, who were consumed with
resentment, did not have the education to articulate their inner turmoil and
wouldn’t know what to do about it anyway. There were no advocates.

It wasn't until they got older that they realized The
Sewers was a derogatory name for the ghetto where they lived, but by then what
was the difference? They didn’t care. A great many inherited their parents'
addictions, and when a person is addicted nothing else matters. It is a way of
life, where there is no dignity; where human beings copulate and defecate in
the street like stray dogs, and toddlers are prostituted for a hit of heroin.

The neglected offspring of these addicts, it should be
understood, were not seen as casualties or victims of their parents’ substance
abuse and poverty; rather, they were a dehumanized, negative consequence, like
delirium tremens, hepatitis, track marks or eviction notices. As such, the
sewer children were treated with the same avoidance associated with any unwanted
side effect of pathology. Besides, even if the addicts and degenerate
alcoholics wanted to properly nurture
their kids, they couldn’t because crystal meth kills the ability to parent and
alcohol is a destructive virus.

The lack of parenting meant the sewer kids had to fend
for themselves. But this again was fine – when you are born into a thing you
become accustomed to it, in the same way these kids were habituated to the stink
of raw sewage, or the ache of hunger in the pit of their emaciated stomachs.

Initially, they grew up vaguely aware of The Uplands
where affluent metropolitans led lavish lives, discarding in a moment what took
months to gather through scheming, begging and stealing. Over time, this vague
awareness of something better developed into a kind of chronic longing.

There, however, was no sympathy from The Uplands; no
charitable handouts. The filthy urchins from The Sewers were treated as harshly
as all vermin are treated. No one coaxes rodents from the trash with gifts of
love, nourishment and shelter.

Eventually, in this cauldron of contempt, indifference
and the constant fight to survive, the chronic longing progressed into acute,
drug-fuelled, sociopathic rage, and transformed the innocence of babes into the
seething hatred of caged animals, who have suddenly become aware of their unjust
confinement, but more importantly that their shackles were not in fact an
impossible reality shared by all.

And it was this enraged, snarling animal, bent on taking
the freedom and riches denied it, who clawed its with bloodied paws out of The
Sewers and into The Uplands.

Saturday, November 29, 2014

According to evolutionary theory, man shares a common
ancestor with chimpanzees, diverging into separate lineages some millions of years
ago. Unfortunately, and I’m sorry to have to report this, not all the men made the divergent cut, which
in itself is alarming enough because it means they still enjoy the same status as Homo sapiens even though they are dangerous beasts and DO NOT belong in the same human family.

Worse yet is that these ape men have infiltrated every
rung of the social hierarchy and not just the lower ghetto levels where you
would rightly expect to see them. They
are down there of course, terrorizing, molesting and raping women and
children, stealing from them, exploiting them, psychologically abusing them, beating
the shit out of them on a regular basis and generally acting like their
physically aggressive brothers in the wild, the alpha male chimpanzee. So that
is bad enough, but at least they are relatively easy to spot if that careful but cunning shark,
Justice, EVER decides to do something about them.

Most alarming of all, however, but only because he
isn’t as easy to spot as his significantly less impressive brethren, is the predatory
alpha chimp roaming the upper echelons of society. These are clever assholes,
disguised as paunchy peacocks in glittery cloaks of power, credentials, misguided
intelligence, wealth, fame and charisma – disguises that work to divert
everyone’s attention from their clandestine, sleazy motives and crimes.

They strut around fooling people, dazzling them with
their shiny objects, bloated conceit and self-important blethering as they
spout off clichés and personal sound-bites, engage in shameless self-branding and
otherwise make bombastic statements about their own worth and abilities as pretend
human beings. But make no mistake, they aren’t humans. They are greasy blobs of
greed and disgusting self-gratification to an excess far beyond anything most
of us could ever imagine. Those they do not fool – who see them for the repugnant
freaks of nature they are – the chimps are quite good at silencing one way or
another, at least historically.

And while these narcissistic ape men may not have
evolved along with the few good real men
they masquerade as, their top-heavy egos CERTAINLY have grown beyond the
confines of their skull, which as karma would have it is often their ultimate
downfall.

The main problem with these morbidly obese egos is that
they give the egomaniac the illusion that he is an invincible god and that
his desires and actions are above reproach or the conventions of civilized
society, including the law. When that sense of entitlement is paired with the
urges of your typical smooth-talking, phallic-centered ape-man, particularly a
seemingly ingenious one in a control position, no female is safe.

This then should be of concern to everyone because when
the girls aren’t safe, society as a whole isn’t safe. The ape men must be
stopped and put in the cages where they belong. To stop them, though, you must first
have an eye for the signs of their presence, a nose for their stench and an ear
for their sound, paying particular attention to the chatter that invariably
swirls around them, especially chatter the chimp handlers are quick to
discredit, often with the by now dull and uninspired “slut or nut” defence.

Or perhaps the chimp himself, with a delusional
belief in his right to do whatever the hell he pleases to whomever he pleases, will
take matters into his own hands with an absurdly grandiose and rambling
Facebook post that has the audacity to compare the drivel that is Fifty Shades
of Grey with the literary brilliance that is anything Lynn Coady writes. How
dare he. Fifty Shades of Grey? Really? This is the idiocy he aspires to? Filthy
animal. He deserves to be “hate-fucked” by Satan’s demons for all eternity for
that cross-reference alone.

I digress.

You see the same engorged ego in the crack-smoking
mayor who thinks his “unique” apology is somehow a superpower that magically erases
criminal behavior with a simple “sorry”, the senator who makes false expense
claims, apparently believing the taxpayer is his personal piggy bank, the world-famous
actor who drugs and rapes a series of women over the course of many years and
gets away with it even though everyone knows perfectly well he’s doing it.

You also see it in the police officer who sexually harasses
a female civilian and “kids” with his buddies about gutting her, the successful
comedian who generates big laughs with rape jokes, the minister of pretty much anything, whether church or government, who
uses his position to sexually impose himself on his tyrannized “inferiors” and the
physician who likewise uses his position to sexually attack and coerce female patients.

You see it in the affluent, highly articulate, best-selling author, with the steady pulse of a psychopath and a disturbing degree of clout over the brains of his goat-like followers, who elevates
himself to the point of God, proclaiming all religion is a lie, every believer is stupid, there in fact is no God, and nothing divine to awaken the human spirit and enlighten the human mind. But wait! Never fear! For the bargain price of $32, you don't need God because HE can wake up your soul with his book; the same soul he simultaneously says
doesn’t exist. That’s the thing about these chimps: They get away, without remorse, with doing
and saying WHATEVER nonsensical thing that occurs to them in a lightening flash
of vile epiphany.

You furthermore see a grotesquely swollen and diseased ego
in the corrupt venture capitalist, with a string of dewy young minnows on the
fishing line, who made his billions with dirty oil and shady deals, and boasts
it all came from hard work, implying the rest of humanity doesn’t work hard. Don’t
ask HIM for a charitable “handout”. Sweat harder! The downtrodden masses deserve
everything they suffer, as far as he is concerned, and with great glee flogs
those beneath him with another lash of his diamond-studded whip.

But don’t worry too much. Nothing lasts forever, even
though it often feels that way when injustice and barbarism seem to be the predominant flavour of the ages. Even so, with patience, one day the chimp will be taken off guard and
instead of a pretty little minnow at the end of his line, he will inadvertently
snag a shark and get her attention. And that shark, the shrewd beauty that she
is, will sense the potentially gratifying taste of chimp blood, and with a slash of her
teeth reveal his true hideous form and rip the smug right off his stunned face.

In the meantime, the ape-men are toppling over under
the extreme weight of their monster egos and getting tangled up in their own
nets in spectacular Darwin Award style. It is truly something awesome to behold. They are losing their jobs, their health, their
money, their people, their status, their allure, and their freedom.

Sunday, November 16, 2014

Jenna was adamant she would NOT be leaving Vancouver
with me in the morning and she certainly would not be going anywhere near the north coast community I was
heading.

“I will NEVER set foot in that bog EVER again!!” she
vowed with the kind of passion she normally reserves for her hair.

I merely smiled. I know my daughter well enough to know
there is no point in trying to sway her from her ideas with my own passionate pleas.
So I simply said, “Fine”. Total acceptance. Very Zen of me.

Fourteen hours later we had left the city and were well
on our way with an unabashed Jenna in the front passenger seat and Lizzy and DJ
mercifully occupied with their various electronic devices in the back.

Already Jenna’s expected unexpected presence was
interfering with my itinerary, which is usually the case when she decides to
tag along on these road trips at the last minute. I don’t drive fast enough for
her, I stop too often and my choice of hotel is never nice enough for her
liking. Actually, she would rather I drove the straight 20 hours to our final
destination without stopping at all but that’s where I draw the line. I am not
driving that long and I’m definitely not trusting her to drive.

Jenna has been able to bend me to her will since the
day she was born but not this time, which is what I told her: “We are staying
overnight in Prince George at the same hotel I always stay at and that’s
final!”

She merely smiled. She knows me well enough to know
there is no point in trying to sway me. No need in pleading a case she knows she
will ultimately win if she times her manipulation right.

She bided that time for maybe the first 7 hours of
driving, a few hours after the last of a series of interesting conversations that inevitably turned into trivial but feisty grievances, which then turned into minor disagreements, perhaps a raised voice or two, and then finally into our signature reconciliation and resultant laughter. It's our normal mother/daughter cycle. Anyway, as I've said, it was a while after one of these cycles that Jenna began her seemingly innocuous campaign:
“Mom, do you want more money?”

What kind of question?

“Well, I’m not a self-depriving Buddhist so what do you
think?”

“I think you do want more money. One way to do that is
to save money. Do you want to save money?”

I looked at her suspiciously, “What are you getting
at?”

“If you drive just a little further past Prince George
you will save BIG money on the hotel. I found one – it’s clean, cheap and they
have vacancies. What do you think?”

What did I think? That was irrelevant. I would like to
say I stuck to my guns but I didn’t and kept driving past Prince George. By the
time we arrived at this great money saving hotel it was nearing midnight. It
was called Glen’s Motor Inn, which the name alone should have tipped me off that
this was not the place for us since Glen was the name of my first stepfather, a
drunk with a rage problem and a hypocritical predilection for Christian
fundamentalism, but only when it suited him – NOT a fun combination. It was a
sign.

Always heed the signs.

Unless the sign includes the name “Glen”. If it says
“Glen” keep driving.

But alas only a select enlightened few ever take signs
seriously, so I turned into Glen’s even as my inner voice stirred in protest.

Jenna’s voice, on the other hand, vocally filled with dismay when she saw where we
were going.

“Mom! What are you doing? This is some ghetto Chinese
restaurant! This isn’t the hotel!”

Music blared so loud from this restaurant that it made my
SUV bounce and I realized the “restaurant” was actually a bar. There was also a
cold beer and wine store and loitering in front of this entire complex of
hillbilly fun were clusters of riffraff, all of them inebriated and uninhibited.
They were out looking for a good time and they had found it.

Jenna was horrified and the younger children terrified.

“No, Jenna, THIS is the hotel you pushed for, so here
we are!”

I pointed to the signage, but not wanting to believe
what her own eyes were telling her, Jenna quickly reread the online description.
Sure enough the hotel featured a beer store, pub and Chinese restaurant. There
was a picture – a nicer image than the one we were now witnessing, but it was
the same place nonetheless.

I pulled into an empty spot right in front of a group
of 5 or 6 men and women hooting and hollering, falling down, making lewd
gestures and speaking in Drunkenese.

In the backseat Lizzy whispered that she was scared and
DJ began to cry. In the front, Jenna exclaimed, “We can’t stay here! You’re not
going in there are you??”

I took a deep breath and with every ounce of
self-control I possessed did not lose it on her, even though she was the reason
we were in this predicament in the first place. Instead, with a calm I did not
feel, I opened the door, told the kids everything would be fine, I’d get us a
room, and be right back. Everyone simmer down.

As soon as I shut the car door, I was treated to the rowdy
slur of a drunk man hollering absurdities at me. I am familiar with Drunkenese
though – it’s an ugly language – and know to ignore it.

Trying to converse with The Inebriated like this is like trying
to reason with The Walking Dead. It can’t be done, there’s no real brain to
work with, there’s a lot of repetition and if you get too close they slobber
all over you. They also turn on you with a lightning speed that defies their
otherwise retarded reflexes. One minute they love you, the next you’re a
“stupid bitch”. They are a bunch of weakened souls who choose to cater to their
weakness with booze rather than rise above it. In other words, I am not a fan
of drunk people, in case that wasn't clear.

Oddly, despite my objective view that drunks are fools whose indecipherable insults and taunts don't deserve my attention, they still put me on edge, so it was with some anxiety already in the pit of my stomach that I walked past the slurs and into Glen's Motor Inn. That anxiety was in no way lessened, however, when upon entering the lobby, and closing the door on the jackasses outside, my senses were instantaneously slammed with the
smell of cheap air freshener mixed with mildew, the teeth shattering vibrations
of booming music from the pub next door, the strange stickiness on the counter
where I set down my purse ,and the sight of the clerk who came shuffling in from
a back door connected to the Cold Beer & Wine Store.

It appeared she was working both places and she was a
sight to behold. She was an enormous hulk of a woman, half André the Giant,
half Big Bird, with frizzy red hair, half-closed eyelids as if she was stoned, one missing front tooth and one gold tooth. The remainder of her teeth were in various stages of
decay.

She addressed me with the kind of slowed speech and
movement you see with people who never really learned to read and who spend
most of their time in Jerry Springer type scenarios, the kind Dr. Phil likes to
exploit.

Warning bells went off in my head. I did not
want to stay there and I knew none of my children would stay there and yet I
handed over a cash deposit, signed on the dotted line, took the key from André and in a daze, maneuvered up the two flights of stairs – no elevators at Glen’s
– to the second floor.

As I heaved the door open my ears were immediately
assaulted with the unmistakable sound of creaking – possibly breaking – bed
springs and some chick in the throes of a fake orgasm. She was putting on quite the performance too. If my kids
were with me they would have thought someone was killing her and would have been
even more traumatized than they already were at that moment waiting in my
vehicle, panicked that someone had taken their mother hostage and would come
get them next. Perhaps somebody would.

As I continued down the hall in a trance, and the pig-like
squeals of pseudo-ecstasy got louder and louder, along with the voice in
my head screaming to turn and RUN, the word DISEASE flashed through my
brain. And still (because I was tired
and the thought of having to keep driving at that late hour was still slightly
more objectionable than staying in this den of iniquity) I walked forward to
room 234, which of course was directly beside the room that it would seem was rented
by the hour.

When I entered the room, I might as well have been in the room next
door. I could hear everything they were doing and as a consequence, feeling mildly nauseous, sat
on the bed, which crinkled underneath me. The mattress was covered in plastic.
That was IT for me! I snapped out of my trance, jumped off the bed and went
in search of André. I wanted my money back.

She was confused by the request. I told her with the
music blaring, the drunk zombies outside and the prostitution ring they had
running, there was no way I could let my kids stay there. She went silent
trying to figure out this apparently bizarre turn of events. No one had ever asked
such a thing of her before.

Finally she offered to move me to a different room as
if that would make ANY difference. No. I just wanted my money and I’d be off. So,
unable to think of any other way to persuade me to stay she reluctantly handed
me back my money and robotically said, “Thanks for staying at Glen’s,” without
a hint of sarcasm.

I stared at her for a good 30 seconds before replying, “You’re
welcome”.

She smiled. It was weird.

The children were relieved when I returned to them without a key, but not so relieved when
they noticed my tears.

“Oh my god!! What’s wrong with you??” Jenna grabbed my
shoulder, alarmed, until she realized I was laughing, the kind of laughter
where you can’t talk, the kind that’s contagious, where everyone in the car also erupts into laughter and they don’t know why. It was a good thing too because
if not for the laughter I don’t know what I would have done to Jenna, who at the time I held
responsible for the entire fiasco.

We didn’t find another vacancy until 2 o’clock in the
morning, in a literally rat infested motel in the middle of nowhere. And it
wasn’t funny or at least it shouldn’t have been.

“It’s a good thing I have a sense of humor,” I angrily whispered
to Jenna through the darkened motel room, over the younger children’s sleeping
heads.

In the background was the sound of scuttling feet
running through the walls and I was wary of the other shady characters staying at
the motel, including the guy managing the place. I did not feel safe and felt
the urge to get mad at someone, anyone. But Jenna didn’t answer. She was
sleeping too.

Even Lucky, our Chihuahua was sleeping at the foot of
the bed, all of us cocooned there together, everyone else evidently feeling safe
enough to sleep. And just like that my anger dissipated and I smiled, feeling
like André who smiles when superficially it doesn't seem like there is anything to smile about. I smiled not because it was funny, but because for the first time in that
long gong-show day, even amidst my fatigue, insomnia, unease and all the other
million things that were wrong in my life, I thought how blessed am I?

Monday, October 13, 2014

I had a problem. I was powerless over my children and
my life had become unmanageable. I needed Parenting Anonymous. Signs of my
pathological parenting surrounded me and I could no longer live in denial. The
crayon was on the wall.

Every wall in my home, in fact, was decorated by
various abstract pieces done in wax crayon, indelible marker and finger paint.
These pieces were not framed, but were rather done mural style directly on the
walls courtesy of our prolific in-house artist, 2-year-old Lizzy Ann.

She was beginning to create a name for herself too, as
her art branched out to other homes. Aunty Myrtle, Grandma Rose and The Olsons
next door all had a few pieces of her work. Some people, such as Uncle George,
didn't even know they owned a Lizzy Ann because occasionally she’d do her work
discreetly in a closet or in places where portly people like Uncle George couldn’t
bend down to see. Evidently, my parenting problem was affecting not just me,
but also the home decor of those I loved.

Further signs of my problem were the tampered
electronics and plumbing issues with which I had to contend. As Lizzy busied
herself with artistic endeavors, 4-year-old DJ developed an interest in
electronic engineering and apprenticeship plumbing. He attempted at various
times to refurbish my DVD player, VCR and PC; as well as refit a bathroom
toilet using his Rescue Heroes submarine. When the submarine never resurfaced
from the flooding depths of the toilet bowl, I had no choice but to call in a
professional plumber to save the drowning toy.

In addition, although I tried my best to cover it up,
evidence of my bribery binges was strewn throughout the house, further
attesting to my parenting problem. Empty Fisher Price and Hot Wheel packaging
littered the halls and the toy boxes overflowed with abandoned toys the
children got bored of as quickly as they got them. It became harder to deny my problem
when I realized the clerk at the toy store knew my son by name and what brand
of toy he preferred.

Yet another indication of my problem was the high
tolerance level the children had attained for the briberies of toys and candy.
The more I gave in, the more they demanded. Eventually I had to give them three
times as much as I once had to in order to get the same behavioral result I
desired. Consequently, I discovered that as their tolerance level for briberies
increased, my bank balance decreased. Combine that with the expense of
replacing household electronics, as well as calling in expensive plumbers, and
it seemed that my parenting problem was not only hurting the ones I loved, but
also my financial bottom line.

Nearly every aspect of my existence had been impacted
in one way or another by my parenting problem. To others I downplayed the
impact it had on my life. However, it was impossible to hide my unkempt
appearance and blood shot eyes from lack of sleep due to late night kitchen
runs for water and jam toast. Furthermore, when I went to speak to someone the
hoarseness of my voice gave me away. It appeared that I had a chronic case of
laryngitis thanks to the children's incessant requests to hear me repeatedly
growl in my best Big Bad Wolf voice: "Little Pig, Little Pig LET ME COME
IN!"

I was finally forced to face my problem when my husband,
John, confronted me with proof of my diseased parenting. It was after 11 p.m.
and the children slept sprawled out in the marital bed as I served John a late
supper of chicken nuggets, Goldfish crackers and carrot sticks. I could sense
something was bothering him by his silence, but nonetheless was startled when
he suddenly slammed his sippy cup down, sloshing chocolate milk all over the
table.

He told me he felt like I had lost control of the
children. He asked if I had even noticed that our new leather ottoman had
mysteriously acquired little puncture wounds all over one side of it. He said
it was the final straw and demanded to know what had happened to the recently
purchased item. He also wanted to know why he was drinking out of a sippy cup
at 11 o'clock at night.

I claimed I didn't have any answers for him, but
inwardly presumed Lizzy Ann had something to do with the redesigned ottoman
since she was our resident artist. DJ
was too busy feeding his grilled cheese and Lego sandwich to the VCR to bother
with ottomans.

No, this looked like Lizzy's work, I thought to myself
as I knelt down beside John to get a better look at what he considered to be an
act of vandalism. Apparently, Lizzy was venturing into some sort of
contemporary art. I tried to justify myself and minimize John’s concerns as
best I could, but he stomped away in frustration to sleep in the playroom using
a doll blanket as a pillow. In hindsight, both my parenting problem and the
cracks in my marriage were obvious. But not at the time. Ignorance is a
blindfold.

Anyway, the mystery of the leather ottoman was solved the
morning after John’s confrontation, when I caught Lizzy red handed. During the
endless process of picking up the toys that constantly made their way into the
living room, I happened to catch Lizzy intently marching towards the ottoman
with a ballpoint pen clutched in her hand.

I managed to grab the pen from her just as she was
about to plunge it into the “valued” piece of furniture. I told her
"naughty" and then went into the kitchen to put the pen on top of a
shelf where she couldn't reach it. When I went back into the living room to see
what else Lizzy was getting into I let out a gasp of alarm at what I discovered.

There she was furiously stabbing the ottoman with a SECOND
ballpoint pen. She must have had a secret stash somewhere. When I ordered her
to stop she only briefly looked at me before basically shrugging her shoulders
and resuming her brutal attack on the ottoman with even more fervor. She
totally disregarded me as she focused completely on trying to get in as many
stabs as she could before the pen was confiscated a second time. She looked
like a crazed murderer determined to inflict as much pain on her inanimate
victim as possible.

In the middle of all this, DJ came running into the
room to see what all the commotion was about. When he saw what Lizzy was doing
he immediately cried out, "I want a turn!"

In my diseased mind, I reasoned that since the ottoman
was already ruined, I might as well grant DJ his wish and let him have a try
too. At that point I did not see that John had also been awoken by the commotion
and was watching the whole proceedings with growing disbelief. He watched,
incredulous, as I retrieved the first pen I had confiscated from Lizzy and
handed it to DJ.

It wasn’t until I had settled myself on the couch to
passively survey the carnage and mayhem that I noticed John standing there and
witnessed the look of utter horror on his face. Divorce would inevitably follow
but first things first: My name is Lala and I am a
Parentoholic.

Thursday, October 2, 2014

In today’s information age we are exposed at an unprecedented rate to horrific accounts of rape. It is making some of us uncomfortably aware. And while ignorance may be bliss, it is only blissful to the ignorant. To the socially conscious, to the street-wizened and to the victimized, ignorance is a tool of oppression and a means of propagating inhumanity.

This
awareness – that our blissful ignorance has been complicit in unimaginable
misery to a big chunk of the human race – is often coupled with a compulsion to
act; in other words work, and possibly unpleasant, frustrating, unblissful
work; hence the ignorance is bliss thing. It’s less work to blame the victim.
But once you know, you know. You can no longer cuddle up in your cozy
ignorance.

In the past
if you were raped, few people heard about it, unless it was a particularly
sensational or gruesome story. As for you, the anonymous one, you were more or
less condemned to suffer in the privacy of your own head, with only the pain of
your battered body to remind you that you were indeed a human being and not an
inanimate object meant for male consumption and communal use, like a public
toilet.

Then again
maybe that really was all you were worth. Perhaps you deserved it. The societal
messages that surrounded you certainly suggested you deserved it or worse yet
“wanted” it.

But you
didn’t deserve it and you absolutely did not want it.

It seemed
the only way to reconcile this cognitive dissonance between what you were told
and what you knew was acquiescence, suppression, denial, rationalization or a
big ass bottle of booze and a bevy of pills. There was no easy therapy.

If all else
failed, a self-applied noose around the neck and a suicide note would take care
of the problem. You were already dead inside anyway, and no one seemed to
notice that. They didn’t know about your ordeal nor did they care to know. You
were utterly alone.

You were
also ashamed.

You were
ashamed because even though it conflicted with your reality, the culture and
era in which you found yourself told you in subliminal and not so subliminal
ways that not only did you want to be raped but you were MEANT to be raped.

All girls,
in fact, were hardwired and physically formed to desire rape and used their
sexuality to manipulate men into raping them. It wasn’t the man’s fault – he
was just doing what the reptilian part of his brain told him to do. Men had no
more control than a dog in heat over their natural urge to copulate with any
accessible female they could get their molesting hands on, even if that female
was a duck.

It was thus
left up to women, who were NOT cursed to wander the planet with debilitating
thoughts of ejaculation every 12 seconds, to act as bodyguards. Men were
vulnerable and needed protection from their overwhelming impulses – impulses
which could be triggered by virtually ANYTHING.

Nothing like a sexy gouty toe to tempt a guy.

The male
libido was a handicap for men. Women, who did not possess this same handicap,
were by default held accountable (because someone HAD to be) for whatever
happened to female bodies, even as they were paradoxically prohibited from
making choices that affected those SAME bodies.

If you were
female and someone raped you, assaulted you, insulted you with gendered hate speech and rape jokes, or impregnated you, the only person you
could blame was yourself – you should have been a better bodyguard.

The “good”
women who covered their parts, averted their eyes and did as they were told
were not a threat to the practice of NOT randomly raping people. These
upstanding ladies were still raped mind you, just not as much, or so society
was allowed to believe.

The “bad” women
who had opinions, disagreed and dressed how they wanted based on personal
style, fashion trends and comfort were fair game. Their appearances and
mannerisms prodded at men’s fragile self-control like a fool prodding a rabid
beast with a stick.

It was only
a natural inevitability then that a man would succumb to his weakness and
sexually impose himself on whoever or whatever
(there was a guy who couldn’t control himself near a cow and was forced to
marry her) inadvertently provoked his hypersensitive arousal.

Stupid
people who goaded aggressive animals deserved what they got (although it’s hard
to say how the cow provoked her rape. Was it her sexually stimulating “moo”?)

Consequently,
accused “rapists” were seen as rape victims. They were lured to
rape in the same way Eve lured Adam to defy God and eat from the Tree of
Knowledge. Females were responsible for the evils of men because at the heart
of the matter, even though women were the inferior gender, feminine sexuality
was a tool of mind control. It didn’t make sense, but when it came to rapists
it didn’t have to make sense.

Men were so
afraid of this magical feminine power which tricked rapists into committing
rape that in certain places women were forced to hide their wicked femaleness
under loose fitting clothing, in some cases to the point of wearing heavy black
cloaks over their heads like body bags.

Apparently
the thinking here was (still is) that females lost their power when men
couldn’t objectively see their femininity, when they blended into the
background like black ghosts floating before a white sky.

However,
there did remain a few astute men, who although may have been blind to stark
contrasts, nevertheless understood covering something with a sheet did not
literally make the thing disappear. The thing still existed – it still had
genitalia – and women were still raped.

But again,
since all women were genetically programmed to be consenting whores who fooled
men into raping them, rape was not technically rape anyway. There was no such
thing as consensual rape, even evidently if one of the people “consenting” was
not consenting willingly.

No did not
mean no.

Besides,
everyone understood that genuine rape was only committed by alcoholic
degenerates, drug addicts and psychopaths. Normal men with jobs didn’t rape.

But some of
us understand things differently now.

And while
the aforementioned attitudes towards rapists and their victims obviously
persist today in our, what has been dubbed, “rape culture”, the difference is
that what was once ignored is now being examined. This piece of seemingly fresh
meat has been kicked over to reveal its rot and the maggots are scattering.

We are
seeing things we’ve never seen before.

Just as
advances in science and technology have revealed errors in many other once
widely held human manufactured beliefs, these advancements have also, perhaps
unintentionally, revealed gross misconceptions and willful denials regarding
rape.

There is no
hiding from these realities (albeit often misinterpreted realities).

The shared
knowledge travels along the information highway faster than a rapist can find
an alibi or zip up his pants.

Any
despicable thing a person does can potentially be recorded by a passerby and
shared with the world in the blink of an eye. This kind of reality monitoring
by regular people is pushing human mental evolution to higher levels of
consciousness where the air is better and the view significantly more
expansive.

It is more
difficult, although not impossible, to make the “she asked for it” defence when
there is a video that’s gone viral of you and your buddies gang raping an
unconscious girl ora
girl who is fully conscious and can be heard, seen and felt screaming
in terror and agony, begging for it to end.

It is also
more difficult to argue rape was actually consensual sex when there is a corpse
and a suicide “note” in the form of a Youtube vlog, which unequivocally conveys
the message that the “sex” was not by consent but by force. If a girl would
rather be dead than alive with the nightmare of her assault replaying in her
head every breathing moment, how can any reasonable person say she “wanted it”?

It is
furthermore harder to claim rape only happens to women who behave and dress
provocatively when every day we are told of innocent children being even more
barbarically violated than their older rape-victim counterparts.

Then there
are the countless women who are raped while minding their own business, walking
down the street in anything but a seductive manner, or housed in the seclusion
and “safety” of their own homes. Men are also raped.

And we won’t
even go into how rape is used as a weapon of war and terrorism.

What is
exceedingly clear from this steady stream of rape reporting and female shaming
is that the criminal act of rape has little to do with the actions of the
person who is raped. The rapist can choose NOT to sexually assault people it’s
a simple as that.

Rapists can
walk away from the unconscious, semi-naked girl passed out on a sofa and it’s
absurd to claim otherwise.

Despite the
stupid myths surrounding rape culture, the mere sight of a girl, particularly
one who is intoxicated, naked or partially clothed, does not literally suspend
male freewill as all sense drains from his brain directly into his disgusting
erection.

The human
brain has evolved
beyond its limbic system and does have access to higher levels
of cognitive functioning. In other words, the male brain CAN make the decision
to not rape someone despite the physical state of his body. Even rapists were
trained as toddlers how to control their base urges.

Of course
there will always be misogynists, fanatics and misguided apologists who will
refuse to place the blame squarely on the rapist’s shoulders. They will
continue to argue, as Nick Ross did, that “rape isn’t always rape”; the victim
must take some responsibility. He likens a provocatively
dressed female to a “sack of cash” left unguarded at the front door of a bank,
or in the middle of a poorly secured airport.

Ah, sorry
but NO. Giving in to
the temptation of stealing a bag of unchaperoned money that does not breathe,
feel pain, or have a brain is NOT the equivalent of forcing
yourself on another human being who finds you repulsive. And even if you didn’t
make her sick to her stomach – even if she was attracted to
you – she STILL would not be interested in having you sexually assault
her.

But none of
that matters does it? Lowlifes and sadists who choose to think of rape as welcomed
seduction are not, as a rule, impressed by pleas to a sense of humanity,
video-recorded facts, expert and reason-based opinions, or eye witness
testimonies that conflict with their depraved bias. But no one was going to
enlighten those lesser evolved, narrow, concrete-minded animals anyway.

But don’t
give up trying to sway them, because until a thing is dead there is always a
grain of hope – no matter how unlikely – that a metamorphosis could occur and
another step up the evolutionary ladder made.

For the
higher evolved Homo sapiens, though, the ongoing accounts of rape and brutality
torment the intellect and generate awareness. Ultimately, it is this awareness
that revs up the enormous, slow-to-start, gas-guzzling engine of social change.

The epidemic
rape stories are morbid, but they are also vital sources of fuel that must be
mined, exported and consumed. This is the power of the people driving the
engine.

Granted, it
is not unanimously conceded rape is or ever was an epidemic,
nor is it accepted across the board that an entire subculture exists around the
social pathology of rape.

There remain
those who choose to believe rape is nothing more than a minor nuisance that’s
been blown out of proportion by radical feminism and mass media, with an agenda
to either malign men or create sensationalized news stories for the sole
purpose of increasing viewer and readership amongst the sheep-like masses.

But whether
you believe a disease is a disease or the product of choice makes little
difference to the disease’s progression. A carcinoma left unencumbered,
undetected and unaddressed will spread. And while the relentless reporting of
rape on a daily basis might seem like the cancer, it is
actually the first flush of a cure.

As humanity
takes notice it’s under attack by sinister phenomena, it is no longer satisfied
with passively sitting by as rape after rape after rape occurs without
restraint.

Some
appendages of humanity, while not completely awake, are already beginning to
show signs of life.

There is
movement.

Humanity is
stirring from its lethargy and an army of social activism is being assembled in
retaliation against the river of human sludge that snakes its way throughout
the internet, infecting humanity, spreading hate, inciting violence and ruining
innocent lives.

Change is a
foot.

But it is a
painful change and it doesn’t take much effort to find the source of this pain.
Do a quick Google News search and you will find a self-replenishing supply.
Turn on the TV or stroll down the frigg’in street
and chances are your brain will be sucker-punched with this repugnant
information.

There is the
seemingly endless stream of rape cases out of Pakistan, Afghanistan and India
involving children and young women, such as the recent report of a 4-year-old
who was lured with the promise of a banana and then ripped apart in a violent
act of sexual assault. She was found hemorrhaging and later died of cardiac
arrest.

The week
before, there was a 5-year-old from New Delhi who met a similar fate. New Delhi
was also the setting of a gang rape that ignited huge protests demanding
something be done about the pandemic of violence against women and girls in
India. The 23-year-old medical student was taken hostage on a bus and gang
raped by six men in particularly gruesome and sadistic ways while the bus kept
in motion. Her companion was beaten to near death. The bloodied twosome was
eventually discarded on the side of the road and 2 weeks later the young victim
died from her injuries. The family did not want her name released for fear of
the shame it would bring the victim’s family.

On this
continent, no one will soon forget the deeply disturbing, news-breaking story
of Ariel Castro kidnapping, confining, torturing and raping three girls who he
kept imprisoned in his Cleveland shack of a house – in the SAME neighborhood
they were snatched from – over a TEN YEAR period. How does something like that
go unnoticed when there were SO MANY indicators? This is the same insidious
cancer referred to above.

It is as if
humanity has been ignoring the signs of its disease. Healthy cells die while
malignant tumors multiply.

Then there
are the stories of sexual coercion and persecution that utilize social media in
some way.

There is the
story of a 12-year-old girl from New York who was raped at gunpoint by three
teen boys, one of whom recorded the whole thing. The video was then shared on
Facebook like trophy to be admired.

Facebook
seems to come up a lot in these tales of horror.

The NY
attack is just one in a vast library of instances where a gang rape has been
recorded and then proudly shared on Facebook or You Tube as if the rapists had
actually accomplished something worthy of praise and recognition. They do have
half of that straight: their crimes ARE being recognized and it IS causing
alarm and calls for justice.

As the war
on rape wages in the US, with cases such as the Steubenville trial whereby two
teenaged football players were found guilty of repeatedly raping a drugged
16-year-old girl at various parties throughout a single evening, in Canada
17-year-old, Rehtaeh Parsons, hung herself as a result of being raped at 15.

After the
rape, Parsons was systematically shamed and harassed over the next two years,
with the by now familiar custom of sharing images of the assault and engaging
in rape-encouraging propaganda via the internet. Before Parsons, a similar fate
became of Amanda Todd, who was painted with a virtual Scarlet letter and then
mercilessly cyber-bullied until she too was pushed into suicide.

We could
carry on with the stories, but there are too many – this blog would never
conclude. My conscience would never be freed from the vice-like grip of the
innumerable atrocities waiting to be discovered and the despair they are sure
to induce.

But there
is, I’ve discovered, an antidote for such despair in stories of protest, action
and justice. These are the stories where the muted bystanders and the victims,
the apathetic and the apologetic, the paralyzed and the indecisive begin to
move and make noise. They stand up from their prostrate positions and say wait
a minute, we’ve got something to say: Enough is enough.

This
awakened outrage is seen in the protests of India where common people have been
revolting against the tyranny of rape and violence towards women and children,
letting their government know they will not stand idly by anymore.

We see the
antidote in the groups and projects that spread awareness and take action
around the world, such as Everyday Sexism and the Girl Effect, as well as the
heroic efforts of the Global Fund for Women and Amnesty International, in
addition to many more.

And while these entities are grand, noble necessary
organizations that address large scale human rights issues and the legalities
involved, the coolest part of the pushback against the rape culture
movement is the boots on the ground stuff. These are the people who are not
necessarily fighting to change laws – they are fighting to revolutionize the
minds that make and support those laws. They are shifting our culture and it is
exciting to be alive to witness this shift in motion.